Movie Review: Hairspray (1988)

So: as I said the other day, I watched the original Hairspray movie, directed by John Waters in 1987 to compare it with the 2007 version. Verdict: mixed feelings. The movie itself was okay, but, personally, I much preferred the new version. There are two main reasons for that:

1) What I loved about the new version was that it was also based on the Broadway stage musical and that the movie itself was a series of musical numbers (featuring all the songs of the Broadway show). I love this genre in films, so I was happy with the "New Millennium" Hairspray. But in the original movie, they don't sing, this is "just" about a dance contest, nothing more. So for me, it lost part of the charm I found in the new movie. I think it was a lot more fun and "magical" with the songs and everything. So that was my first disappointment.

2) Second, I thought that the movie lacked of character development and of their personnal backgrounds, especially at the beginning of the film where we are not given much information about who these characters are, where they come from, what they do, etc. It seems to go a little too fast to the point.

On the bright side, I liked the character of the Mom (hilarious!) - who was already played by a man in the original film - and still thought the whole movie was pretty entertaining. So, to sum up, not a bad movie but, for me, it lacked this "special something" that I thought made the new version really fun to watch. B-